STEVENS POINT – Stevens Point will receive a check for $1 million Tuesday from developer SkyGroup as part of a deal that will bring the world headquarters for educational software firm Skyward to the city's industrial park.

City Council members unanimously voted Monday to accept a development agreement with the company that was so popular that members applauded themselves and Skyward leaders in the audience as soon as the vote concluded.

"Best of luck to you," Stevens Point Mayor Andrew Halverson said to Skyward officials.

Council member Mike Wiza, who works for Skyward, abstained from the vote.

The agreement requires SkyGroup to spend at least $20 million developing the property, located in Tax Incremental District No. 9, by building a 200,000-square-foot commercial office building. The developer in exchange will have its property taxes refunded every year until 2033, which city leaders described as an incentive to bring at least 600 jobs to the area,

Skyward CEO Cliff King will present the check to Halverson at 9 a.m. Tuesday as part of the tax incremental financing arrangement with the city. Halverson said about half of that money will be used under terms of the agreement to augment infrastructure near the headquarters in anticipation of increased traffic.

Public transportation also will expand to the area.

The rest of the money from SkyGroup will be used to make the land available for the project. The location had originally been designated for a different development project, which has since moved across the street.

In other decisions Monday:

• Council members voted not to further study the city's pay plan, after Halverson scheduled a special Finance Committee meeting to discuss spending up to $5,600 on another study for more current pay data. The city initially spent nearly $30,000 on its 2013 study to create a plan for paying all city employees by comparing their duties and salary with employees in other cities and raising or cutting local paychecks.

The proposed agreement with consulting firm Carlson Dettmann Consulting was intended to update the data used for the first study, Halverson said. He said the numbers initially used to calculate the pay scale have since changed, because communities with which Stevens Point was compared have implemented new pay plans themselves.

The idea was met with disapproval by council members, who said that the consulting firm must have been aware that those communities were changing their pay plans but didn't mention it to Stevens Point government while calculating the city's plan. Some council members also expressed concerns about whether the city could afford to raise employees' salaries any further

Comptroller Corey Ladick said early projections for next year's budget show a shortfall of more than $100,000, which he is working with department heads to shrink. Implementing a new pay plan with higher salaries would increase the projected budget deficit even more, he said.

Council member Jerry Moore said council members recognize that the current plan is flawed, but that the city has a tight budget and shouldn't look into expanding it now.

"We're already doing so much with so little," he said. "This is a matter of budget. It's a matter of finance. It's a matter of what we can afford."

Sari Lesk can be reached at 715-345-2257. Follow her on Twitter as @Sari_Lesk.